Alabama Cross Country Week That Was: Week 11
11/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
Nov. 2, 2009
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The No. 6 Alabama men's cross country team and cross country coach Joe Walker have been through 11 weeks of their season. This past week, the Tide entered the championship portion of the season.
In the first of three championship races, Alabama claimed their second consecutive SEC Championship tallying 56 points. The Crimson Tide became the first team other than Arkansas to repeat as SEC Champions since Tennessee did so during the 1989-90 seasons.
"I basically expected us to get fresh physically and mentally last week for an intense effort at the SEC Championship," Walker said. "So last week's training was very light. We missed one session due to inclement weather that we couldn't make up because of the timeframe."
Even though the squad won their second conference title in a row, the athletes are still not satisfied with their performance. Alabama will have a chance to redeem themselves when they host the NCAA South Region Championships in two weeks.
"We had mixed emotions coming off the course as we truly felt that we didn't have a great day, but did enough to get the win," Walker said. "The guys really competed well and weren't sure of the outcome at the finish line. It wasn't until moments later that we realized we had probably done enough to hold on. Winning two straight is big and allows us to start to work on a little streak of our own hopefully."
Alabama will return to competition on Nov. 14 when they host the NCAA South Region Championships at the Harry Pritchett Running Park.
